The 4th Global Chinese Poetry Contest for College Students of non-native Chinese speakers kicked off on April 9, 2019. Within a month, the committee has received more than 13,000 submissions from Peking University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, National Taiwan University, MIT, Yale University, and the University of Tokyo, etc.
A post-95's Russian girl and a student from Argentina outstood among all the participants, representing the passions for Chinese poetry all over the world.
▲ Pan Tianle from Argentina is now a student at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Argentine student Pan Tianle (Chinese name) at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University has a broad interest in Chinese language and culture, including Chinese poetry!
Growing up in a family under a strong influence of literature and poetry, Pan came to Shanghai in September of 2017. Pan's father and maternal grandfather are both poetry lovers and have published their own poem collections in Argentina. Pan tells the reporter that his father has great affection for the eastern culture and had studied Chinese poetry and Japanese Haiku.
Influenced by the two elders, Pan started to read and write poems from a very young age. In the recent two years, he has often written down his favored poems in class and even translated them into Spanish or English.
"I can sense the beauty of Chinese poetry when I try to translate them. I also like to use my imagination in the rendition and practice my language skills to further understand and appreciate the exquisiteness and creativity naturally incorporated in the poem," Pan says.
"One day I'd love to become the brilliant poet, 'Hsu Chih-mo' of Argentina." Pan jokingly expresses his ambition.
▲ Hsu Chih-mo, an early 20th-century romantic Chinese poet.
The student with dark brown eyes on her chiseled face is Badaleva Anastasia (transliteration), from Russia. She also has a Chinese name — Tang Xilan which means an orchid in the morning breeze. This beautiful name was given by her college professor when she studied Chinese Language and Literature.
▲ Badaleva Anastasia.
Anastasia was born in 1995 in the central Russian city of Rjazan, more than 200 kilometers southeast of Moscow. She grew up with her maternal grandparents in the countryside, where the plains are vast and the forests are lush.
After graduating from high school in 2013, Anastasia found herself interested in Chinese. She then came to Changchun, a northeast city in China to learn Chinese for one year and later was admitted by Zhejiang Sci-Tech University. She completed the four-year courses in just three years, and now is a second-year graduate student majoring in Art Theory.
Speaking of falling in love with writing poetry, Anastasia says, during her undergraduate study, the works of ancient and modern Chinese literature had a profound impact on her. She loves China and Chinese literature. By writing poems in Chinese, she can freely speak out her dreams and longings for her homeland.
▲ Rjazan Region.
Anastasia has been taking the initiative to ask Chinese poets to polish her poems whenever she can. By doing so she's learned a great deal of Chinese writing. When she heard about the poetry contest, she signed up immediately.
In fact, this is her second time to take part in the competition. Early in 2017, Anastasia had participated in the Season Three. "Whether or not my work ends with an award, this is a great learning opportunity because you can read so many great pieces," she says.
Writer / Xu Ruizhe
Translator / Yang Jingyi
Editor / Yang Jingyi